Psalm 74:13

Thou didst divide the sea by thy strength: thou brakest the heads of the dragons in the waters.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(13) Thou.—Verse after verse this emphatic pronoun recurs, as if challenging the Divine Being to contradict.

Divide.—Literally, break up.

Dragons.—Hebrew, tannînîm, not to be confounded with tannîm (Psalm 44:19, where see Note). It is the plural of tannín, which always indicates some aquatic monster. In Genesis 1:21 it is translated whale, so here by Symmachus. The LXX. (comp. Vulgate) have rendered this word and leviathan (in the next verse) by δράκων, and, indeed, the parallelism indicates monsters of a similar, if not the same, kind. About leviathan the minute and faithful description of the crocodile in Job 41 does not leave a doubt, and therefore we conclude that the tannin, here as in Ezekiel 29:3; Ezekiel 32:2 (margin), Isaiah 27:1; Isaiah 51:9 (where it is also, as here, joined with leviathan), an emblem of Egypt, was some great saurian, perhaps the alligator. The derivation from a root implying extend, favours this explanation. (Tristram, Nat. Hist. of the Bible, pp. 260, 261.) Besides its abundance, another fact leading to the crocodile becoming an emblem of Egypt, was the adoration paid to it. (See Herod., ii. 69.)

In the waters.—Literally, on the waters.

Benson Commentary

Psalm 74:13-14. Thou didst divide the sea, &c. — “The first part of this verse alludes to that marvellous act of omnipotence which divided the Red sea for Israel to pass over; the second part to the return of its waves upon the heads of the Egyptians, who, like so many sea-monsters, opening their mouths to devour the people of God, were overwhelmed, and perished in the mighty waters.” — Horne. Thou brakest the heads of the dragons — The crocodiles, meaning Pharaoh’s mighty men, who were like these beasts in strength and cruelty. Thou brakest the heads — That is, the head of Pharaoh himself. He says heads, because of the several princes who were and acted under his influence. Dr. Waterland renders the first word, which we translate dragons, crocodiles, and the latter, the crocodile, meaning Pharaoh. And gavest him, &c., to the people inhabiting the wilderness — Hebrew, לעם לציים, legnam letziim, populo desertorum, locorum, (Buxtorf,) to the people of desert places. The Seventy render it, λαοις

τοις Αιθιοψι, to the Ethiopian people. Poole, Horne, and some other commentators, suppose that ravenous birds and beasts of the desert, and not men, are here intended; and that the sense of the clause is, that the bodies of Pharaoh and his captains were thrown on shore by the sea, and so became food for the wild beasts of the neighbouring deserts. We find the same word ציים, used for wild beasts haunting the deserts, Isaiah 13:21; Isaiah 34:14.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

74:12-17 The church silences her own complaints. What God had done for his people, as their King of old, encouraged them to depend on him. It was the Lord's doing, none besides could do it. This providence was food to faith and hope, to support and encourage in difficulties. The God of Israel is the God of nature. He that is faithful to his covenant about the day and the night, will never cast off those whom he has chosen. We have as much reason to expect affliction, as to expect night and winter. But we have no more reason to despair of the return of comfort, than to despair of day and summer. And in the world above we shall have no more changes.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Thou didst divide the sea by thy strength - Margin, as in Hebrew, "break." That is, he had by his power "broken up" the strength of the sea so that it offered no resistance to their passing through it. The allusion is evidently to the passage through the Red Sea, Exodus 14:21.

Thou brakest the heads of the dragons - Margin, "whales." On the meaning of the word used here - תנין tannı̂yn - see the notes at Isaiah 13:22; notes at Job 30:29. It refers here, undoubtedly, to crocodiles or sea monsters. The language here is used to denote the absolute power of God as manifested over the sea when the people of Israel passed through it. It was as if by slaying all the mighty monsters of the deep that would have resisted their passage, he had made their transit entirely safe.

In the waters - That reside in the waters of the sea.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

13-15. Examples of the "salvation wrought" are cited.

divide the sea—that is, Red Sea.

brakest … waters—Pharaoh and his host (compare Isa 51:9, 10; Eze 29:3, 4).

Matthew Poole's Commentary

The dragons; or, the crocodiles. He means Pharaoh and all his mighty men, who were like these beasts in strength and cruelty.

The waters, to wit, of the sea, where they were drowned.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Thou didst divide the sea by thy strength,.... This and the following instances from hence to Psalm 74:18 are proofs of God's working salvation in the midst of the earth; some of them seem peculiar to the people of Israel, and others are benefits common to mankind in general; which the church makes use of to encourage her faith and hope, in expectation of salvation, and deliverance out of her present distressed and melancholy circumstances. This seems to refer to the Lord's dividing of the Red sea into parts by a strong east wind, while Moses lifted up his rod and stretched out his hand as he was ordered, as a token of the divine power, and so the children of Israel passed through it as on dry land, Exodus 14:21, and he that did this can make way for his redeemed ones to return to Zion with everlasting joy, Isaiah 51:10. Some render the words, "thou hast broken the sea by thy strength" (g); subdued and conquered it, and so hast the dominion over it, rulest the raging of it, settest bounds to it, and hast ordered its proud waves to go so far and no farther; and thus the Arabic version, "thou hast made it to stand"; and the Septuagint and Vulgate Latin versions, "thou hast confirmed it": but our version is best, which refers it to the work of God at the Red sea, and with which the Targum agrees; and Aben Ezra observes, that some refer it to the dividing of the Red sea:

thou breakest the heads of the dragons in the waters: or great whales, as the word is rendered in Genesis 1:21, by which are meant Pharaoh and his generals, his captains and chief men, who were destroyed in the waters of the Red sea; comparable to dragons for their strength, for their cruelty to the children of Israel, and for their wrath and malice against them; and so, for the same reason, another Pharaoh, king of Egypt, in later times, is called the great dragon, that lies in the midst of his rivers, Ezekiel 29:3 and the king of Babylon or of Egypt, Isaiah 27:1. So the Targum paraphrases it:

"thou hast broken the heads of dragons, and hast suffocated the Egyptians in the sea.''

Rome Pagan is compared to a great red dragon with seven heads and ten horns, which have been broken and destroyed, Revelation 12:3, and Rome Papal has the power, seat, and great authority of the dragon; and though the Romish antichrist has two horns like a lamb, he speaks as a dragon, who also has seven heads and ten horns, and which ere long will be broke in pieces, see Revelation 13:1, in the faith of which the church might be strengthened, by considering what God had done to the heads of the dragon in the Red sea; to which may be added that Satan is called a dragon, Psalm 91:13, whose head was bruised, and his principalities and powers spoiled, by Christ at his death, and will be utterly destroyed at his second coming.

(g) "contrivisti", Pagninus, Montanus; "disrupisti", Junius & Tremellius, Piscator, Gejerus, Michaelis; "rupisti", Cocceius.

Geneva Study Bible

Thou didst divide the sea by thy strength: thou brakest the heads of the {i} dragons in the waters.

(i) That is, Pharaoh's army.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

13. Thou] Psalm 74:13-15; Psalm 74:17 all begin with an emphatic Thou; Psalm 74:16 with Thine. It is Thou and none other, Who didst and doest all these things. The Asaphite Psalms are full of references to the Exodus.

by thy strength] Cp. Psalm 77:14; Exodus 15:13. The dragons or sea monsters, and leviathan, either the crocodile or some vague mythological monster, are symbolical of Egypt. Cp. Isaiah 27:1; Isaiah 51:9; Ezekiel 29:3.

in the waters] Lit. upon the waters, the symbolical monsters being imagined as floating upon the surface of the water. The reference of course is to the destruction of Pharaoh’s army in the Red Sea.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 13. - Thou didst divide the sea by thy strength. A clear reference to Exodus 14:21 (comp. Psalm 77:16; Psalm 78:13; Psalm 106:9). Thou brakest the heads of the dragons in the waters. The dragon (tannim) is frequently used as a symbol of Egyptian power (see Isaiah 51:9; Ezekiel 29:3; Ezekiel 32:2). The allusion here is to the destruction of Pharaoh's host in the waters of the Red Sea (Exodus 14:27-30; Exodus 15:4). Psalm 74:13

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

With this prayer for the destruction of the enemies by God's interposition closes the first half of the Psalm, which has for its subject-matter the crying contradiction between the present state of things and God's relationship to Israel. The poet now draws comfort by looking back into the time when God as Israel's King unfolded the rich fulness of His salvation everywhere upon the earth, where Israel's existence was imperilled. בּקרב הארץ, not only within the circumference of the Holy Land, but, e.g., also within that of Egypt (Exodus 8:18-22). The poet has Egypt directly in his mind, for there now follows first of all a glance at the historical (Psalm 74:13-15), and then at the natural displays of God's power (Psalm 74:16, Psalm 74:17). Hengstenberg is of opinion that Psalm 74:13-15 also are to be understood in the latter sense, and appeals to Job 26:11-13. But just as Isaiah (Isaiah 51:9, cf. Psalm 27:1) transfers these emblems of the omnipotence of God in the natural world to His proofs of power in connection with the history of redemption which were exhibited in the case of a worldly power, so does the poet here also in Psalm 74:13-15. The תּנּיּן (the extended saurian) is in Isaiah, as in Ezekiel (התּנּים, Psalm 29:3; Psalm 32:2), an emblem of Pharaoh and of his kingdom; in like manner here the leviathan is the proper natural wonder of Egypt. As a water-snake or a crocodile, when it comes up with its head above the water, is killed by a powerful stroke, did God break the heads of the Egyptians, so that the sea cast up their dead bodies (Exodus 14:30). The ציּים, the dwellers in the steppe, to whom these became food, are not the Aethiopians (lxx, Jerome), or rather the Ichthyophagi (Bocahrt, Hengstenberg), who according to Agatharcides fed ἐκ τῶν ἐκριπτομένων εἰς τὴν χέρσον κητῶν, but were no cannibals, but the wild beasts of the desert, which are called עם, as in Proverbs 30:25. the ants and the rock-badgers. לציים is a permutative of the notion לעם, which was not completed: to a (singular) people, viz., to the wild animals of the steppe. Psalm 74:15 also still refers not to miracles of creation, but to miracles wrought in the course of the history of redemption; Psalm 74:15 refers to the giving of water out of the rock (Psalm 78:15), and Psalm 74:15 to the passage through the Jordan, which was miraculously dried up (הובשׁתּ, as in Joshua 2:10; Joshua 4:23; Joshua 5:1). The object מעין ונחל is intended as referring to the result: so that the water flowed out of the cleft after the manner of a fountain and a brook. נהרות are the several streams of the one Jordan; the attributive genitive איתן describe them as streams having an abundance that does not dry up, streams of perennial fulness. The God of Israel who has thus marvellously made Himself known in history is, however, the Creator and Lord of all created things. Day and night and the stars alike are His creatures. In close connection with the night, which is mentioned second, the moon, the מאור of the night, precedes the sun; cf. Psalm 8:4, where כּונן is the same as הכין in this passage. It is an error to render thus: bodies of light, and more particularly the sun; which would have made one expect מאורות before the specializing Waw. גּבוּלות are not merely the bounds of the land towards the sea, Jeremiah 5:22, but, according to Deuteronomy 32:8; Acts 17:26, even the boundaries of the land in themselves, that is to say, the natural boundaries of the inland country. קיץ וחרף are the two halves of the year: summer including spring (אביב), which begins in Nisan, the spring-month, about the time of the vernal equinox, and autumn including winter (צתו), after the termination of which the strictly spring vegetation begins (Sol 2:11). The seasons are personified, and are called God's formations or works, as it were the angels of summer and of winter.